We eat. All of us. If you don’t eat, then you better get to reading, cause you’re not gonna be here long. And boy do we love to eat. Grab some fast food stats and you will be floored at the amount of crap we shove down our gullets. And here’s the kicker, everything that goes in, sooner or later must come out. The average human poops 128 grams per day or about 4.5 ozs. Now I would speculate in a country as well fed as Americans that number might be a bit higher. Either way, 4.5 ozs/day x 325 million Americans x 365 days a year equals 33 billion pounds of poop a year. That’s a shit-ton of poop a year, literally.

Somewhere along the bumpy road to “civilization”, we decided (at least in America) dealing with your excrement in any way is “not my problem”. We hire people for that shit. Plumbers are on speed dial to wrangle turds at 2am, processing plants handle millions of gallons of the waste water, honey dippers pump your septic, and attendants at the old folks home are hired just to wipe geriatric bottoms. We love stuffing it in the front end, but hell no we aren’t touching it in the back end. And that’s the crux of it. People don’t want to admit they are not biologically any different from the dog squatting in the backyard. Especially when it comes to the biologically unappealing parts like pooping. Therefore, humans have evolved the “shit it and forget it” waste system.

When using a modern conventional bathroom, once it flushes you wave goodbye and forget about. Ask any potty training toddler and they’ll tell you how it works. But that convenience of flush and forget has a huge environmental cost, especially in the water usage. The modern low flush toilet uses 1.6 gallons per flush with many older units using as much as 7 gallons per flush. Even worse, the majority of homes use clean drinking water to flush. That’s a whole other level of stupidity that sends me into orbit. See Water, Water, Everywhere debacle.

Say you want to be more environmentally conscience? You live in Texas? Yes, even Austin is in Texas. Austinites like to think they are their own entity but they are still in Texas. Then you can, but only to a limit. You can buy low flushing toilet. You can even buy ultra low flushing toilets. “Hey, how about a no flushing toilet? I want to use a composting toilet,” you say. Well, you can. Just not if you want to be legal in most of the state. (Yes, for all you Hipsters, Austin has allowed composting toilets. There are very strict restrictions, however. So forget about a homebuilt wheelie bin toilet.) In fact, in large portions of the state, especially rural portions, the only code compliance that exists is verifying that you have installed a county authorized waste disposal system. That is to say, a “septic system”.

That brings me to Boxes In Fields. We (the Planner, me, the Kid, and the 40 lb dog) have been living in RVs just short of 6 years. Living in an RV is mostly like living in a crappy house you can tow. There are often things to fix and when it rains they leak. The one big difference is the toilet facilities. The black water system requires a certain amount of attentiveness to work hassle free. What you put in it affects how it performs. Too much paper and poop, it stops up. Too little water, aka pee, and it stops up. Leave the drain open all the time, the water runs off leaving poop and sediments and the tank stops up. If the toilet seal leaks or the roof vent doesn’t vent, then you get a stinky trailer. The good news is, with just a tiny amount of effort and a small amount of water (1/4 cup a flush) these systems work like a champ. You just have to be willing to take a proactive stance on poop.

If your willing to put in the necessary time and energy, then a composting toilet system is a perfect solution. No water, no expensive equipment to buy, low maintenance cost and all the rich humanure to use in upcoming garden. Perfect for us. The downside, they are perfectly illegal.

In this county, that leaves mound systems and aerobic systems. Both are expensive to install, require professional installation and yearly maintenance, and county approval and inspection. Say “To hell with the county, I’ll just bootleg a system!” Then forget about getting a permit for electricity. The county won’t release electrical permits until an approved septic system is permitted. The reason cited: public safety!  Even though we are willing to use an unconventional toilet, and have been in the RV for some time, our plans are rejected for the safety of the public. Nevermind we know where at least two faulty “approved” systems are located. (My doggo likes to visit one occasionally for a quick dip in the pool of perfume.)